nAchievement, nPower and Effectiveness of Research and Development

The French Test of Insight was administered to 118 executives, scientists and engineers working on seventeen pharmaceutical and chemical industry R + D projects. Scoring was according to McClelland et al., nAch and Veroff nPow systems. The R + D projects were classified as successful and unsuccessful by outside experts, both from a technical and an economic point of view. Blind analysis showed that (1) nAch significantly correlated both with technical and economic success, (2) nPow was a strong factor making for both kinds of success when present in conjunction with nAch but a factor making for failure in the absence of nAch, (3) nAch proved to be a factor making for success both on projects which allowed for initiative and those that did not, nPow on the other hand furthered success on non-initiative projects only, on initiative ones it promoted failure. Results are discussed in the light of the nAch construct, the theory of the human need for work; and various nPow constructs.